


the boy who would be king

by orphan_account



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-07
Updated: 2012-10-07
Packaged: 2017-11-15 20:21:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/531306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>renly-centric. psychiatric hospital au. loras runs around with sunflowers in his hair and dany thinks she's talking to dragons all the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [warnings: mental illness in general; pyromania, eating disorders, panic attacks, random bursts of violence. domestic violence and sexual abuse, casual disregard for how psychiatric hospitals actually work.]

**Renly Baratheon, age 7.**

There is someone in the room with him. The room that’s cold, so cold that it makes his hair stand on end, and that has thin, scratchy sheets on the hard mattress. The room that has thick, strong, black metal bars on the window that he can't reach yet, because he's not a grown up. The room that Renly is in. He thinks it's been a couple of days, but his sense of time is all skewed. There's someone else in that same room.

He's caressing Renly's arm, and Renly is scared, now, really fucking scared of what the man in the room is going to do to him, because the nurses barely even touch him, it's as if he's infected, like the cold is actually coming from his body. Which, hey, Renly doesn't know, he might be, and it might be coming from him, instead of the window, but the man who is touching him doesn't seem to be scared of him, doesn't think he's infect-

 _No, wait._ He's in a field. A field filled with sunflowers. They're everywhere, and Renly thinks that this is where all the sunflowers of the world come from. This field.

There's the sun, and it's so bright, and Renly feels like he might melt if he stares up at it for too long. So he doesn't. His mother's calling out to him, and he's ignoring her. He lies down, and grass stains are going to be all over his pants, and then his mother will get angry with him and Renly looks up at the sun again.

Loras is there, with him, right next to him. Always right next to him. Loras is his best friend. He's playing with a bunch of flowers, trying to turn the weeds into a crown, but he can't. Loras looks up at Renly and holds the bundle of flowers up to Renly, as if asking him to do it for him.

Renly takes it from him, and tells him to sit still as he checks how wide the circle has to be for it to fit Loras' _massive_ head. Loras laughs at that, in that way that Loras laughs when other people insult him. Renly fixes the flowers into a somewhat lopsided makeshift crown, and Loras smiles again, as Renly sits behind him and places the crown on his head, whispering, "And with this crown, made out of sunflowers and grass and string, and also magic, I bestow upon you the highest honour it is to bestow upon another man, and that is.. being a king man. A king. You're a king, now, Loras."

Loras smiles and reaches up to touch the crown, but Renly frowns, and tells him, "No, you can't touch it. It'll fall if you touch it, and then you won't be king anymore, if your crown falls." _You won't be king._

He's in a room, again. He's in the room, actually. And there's a man with him, in the room. A grown up. The room is cold and this man is not a good man. Renly knows this because that man is playing with the leather straps keeping Renly down on the bed, and the nurses don't play with the straps. They just strap him in and leave him be.

Renly thinks he's a man because the smell of his sweat reminds him of when he used to play football, with all the other boys in his class, and his team would win, because he was the best keeper in their class. And afterwards they would all hug, and Renly would think that they had the smell of victory on them. Renly thinks that the boy who'll replace him as keeper for a couple of days will lose them a few of games, but it's nothing he won't be able to fix once the doctors and nurses make him all better. He just has to wait until that happens, and hope that they won't find a better keeper, because then they might not want him anymore.

And then Renly would be stuck watching the games, instead of being in them.

The man is making the straps tighter. No, loose. He's getting Renly out of the straps. Renly gasps and tugs at the straps. "Leave them alone, they were comfortable as they were." He looks up at the boy.

The boy has a crown made out of sunflowers atop his head, and blond hair spews out everywhere, partly entwined with the flowers. He can't smell them, so he assumes they're made out of plastic, even though they look real enough.

Then Renly wonders how much it's going to hurt when his mother pulls the crown out. He doesn't think the boy has a mother, otherwise she would have taken the crown out of his hair much sooner, like Renly's mom would've. Renly hasn't seen his mom in a while. He thinks that maybe she's gotten lost on the way to his room. All the rooms look the same. She would definitely have gotten lost.

The boy tugs at his restraints and Renly thinks he's seen the boy somewhere before. There's pressure on his mouth, like how Loras would press his hand against his mouth to keep him quiet, when they were somewhere they shouldn't be. Renly can't see very well, because it's dark and the hand smells of plastic and soap.

The boy introduces himself as 'Loras' and asks Renly if he wants to play with him. He doesn't, because the doctor told him he should focus on getting better, and he's trying to do that, but there's something that tastes like soap in his mouth and- and he tells Loras so, and Loras looks away and tells him there's a reason that he's in here. Renly knows why he's in here.

"Yeah, because I'm _wrong_. I'm broken. They're trying to fix me."

The boy shrugs and walks out of the room, and Renly thinks he sees him wave at someone.

Renly looks at the ceiling, closes his eyes, and imagines he's somewhere else. In a field filled with all the sunflowers in the world. Maybe, if he imagines hard enough, someday, he will be.

He hopes that day is tomorrow.


	2. Chapter 2

**Renly Baratheon, age 14.**

Renly's fifteenth birthday is on a Wednesday, so the nurses get him two peaches on Sunday and tell him that he can share the second one with anyone he wants. Someone special, they say. Renly doesn't have anyone special, but he would like to, so he shoves them in his pockets and thanks the nurses.

He walks into the Crafts room and looks at all the people he could share the peaches with.

He can't share with the Starks, because there's only one other peach, and they would fight over it like they fight over everything else. That would create a brawl and then the nurses would probably never give him a peach ever again. He didn't want that. Renly's a good kid, and the nurses treat him better than they treat most of the other people in the ward, and he doesn't want them to treat him badly.

The Lannister boys, Jorah, Baelish, and two other people Renly can't remember the names of, are playing 'Cheat' with playing cards that Renly thinks that Tyrion made. They have colours that aren't on standard sets that the nurses play with. They're playing for marshmallows and gummy bears. Renly would like to give in one of the peaches for a packet of gummy bears, but the Lannisters would trick him into giving them the other peach, too. Or trick him into playing with them and then cheat him out of both of them, and not give him any gummy bears, and then claim that he was the one who lost them. The selfish bastards. Renly heard one of the nurses call his doctor a selfish bastard, once.

Cersei isn't even in the Crafts room. She's probably broken out, again. She's always doing that. Her and Jaime. Renly's gotten used to it.

Tyrion's working on making a fake ID, as well. Renly doesn't really remember the outside world, but he's sure that the nurses would notice that Tyrion's ID is written in crayon. He thinks that the nurses wouldn't let him out, again, but Tyrion's broken out more times than Renly can count. The only people who have broken out more than Tyrion are probably his siblings.

He walks away from the table where Tyrion sits juggling making his ID, and playing 'Cheat,' and thinks that maybe he could share it with Dany, but then he notices that she's talking to her dragons, again. He's never actually seen them, but she's told him what they look like enough times to actually know that Rhaegal is the one she's talking to, the green one, the one that's supposedly on the floor.

He's not in the mood for Dany and her dragons, so he starts walking towards Theon, the quiet boy who's just come in only a month or so ago, when he sees a familiar head of hair, with sunflowers entwined in the golden locks. He walks over to the boy and sits next to him, "It's my birthday, today. They gave me two peaches, to share with someone special. Do you want one?"

The boy smiles and picks one of the peaches, the smaller one, out of Renly's fingers and they eat the peaches in silence for a couple of minutes.

Renly doesn't remember seeing the boy during lunch or dinner or crafts, and he's not sure if he's ever seen him outside, but he knows, somehow, that the boy has been in the ward for almost as long as he has. He looks comfortable in his clothes, almost too comfortable. The clothes can be a bit hard getting used to, and Renly knows this because he would get sores all over his hands and feet from itching too often. And also because they're all the standard size, and Theon already looks like he's about to scratch through his bones. But Loras looks right home in his polyester shirt and pants.

"What's your name?"

"Renly Baratheon."

"That's a pretty name. Renly Baratheon. Sounds royal. I like it."


	3. Interlude

_Interlude._

He's six years old and he's convinced that his brothers don't like him very much. They shove him around into walls and doors, and never ever help him do his homework. He's at the bottom of his class because he forgets to do his homework often, and even when he does remember to do it, it's always at night. Renly's not very good at doing his homework under his bedsheets, because he always wakes up one of his brothers, usually Robert, and then they yell at him to go back to sleep, and Renly goes to school with only half of his work done.

It's just him and his brothers in the house, because Dad left when Renly was two and Mom hasn't come home from work in a very long time, but Renly's sure that she'll come back soon.

They live in a house across from the Tyrells, but Loras' house is so much prettier, because the paint isn't stripping off the wood in long thin strips of green, and the garden is actually a garden with a white picket fence, instead of just another place to throw garbage in.

He visits Loras a couple of times a week. The inside of the Tyrells' home is nothing like theirs, because Mrs. Tyrell actually _cleans_ the house, and the Baratheon brothers don't.

"Takes up too much time," Robert says, after Renly inquires as to why their house isn't as clean as the Tyrells'. "And we don't have time to waste, do we, kid?"

Loras has a dog named 'Blue Butters' because blue is Loras' favourite colour and he thinks everything can be improved by adding butter. His sister, Margaery, thinks it's a stupid name, so she calls him 'Chip', because that's cooler and more grown up. The dog has a collar wrapped around his neck and a bone between his teeth. Renly's never had a pet, so he just sits on the comfortable sofa and takes one of the cookies offered to him by Mrs. Tyrell, because his brothers forgot to make him lunch and he's hungry.

He often sleeps over at Loras' house, because his brothers forget to feed him often, but Mrs. Tyrell never does. She dotes on him and tells him that he should eat a lot so that he'll grow up big and strong. Renly has no idea how food will make him big _or_ strong, but he eats it anyway because Mrs. Tyrell cooks a lot of food and he doesn't want to see any of it go to waste.

His brothers never throw away food, because they rarely ever have any. Their cupboards are bare, except for two cans of baked beans that Robert bought on impulse, and then ignored, and their fridge is filled with condiments, instead of actual food. His brothers order pizza a lot, and Renly likes pizza, but they order extra mushrooms on the pizza, and Renly doesn't like mushrooms all that much. Sometimes, they order two pizzas, because his brother's girlfriend will come over and stay the night. Renly thinks that he can get one pizza without mushrooms, but then she eats the mushroom-less pizza all by herself because she hates children, and Renly is apparently the representative for all children in the entire world ever.

He doesn't like his brother's girlfriend, Mel-something, because she always whispers in Stannis' ear and then Stannis grabs Renly's arm and forces him into his too-dark bedroom and tells him to be quiet. Then he locks the door and leaves. And then, like clockwork, Renly hears weird sounds, like someone's hurting his brother's girlfriend, and he thinks it might be Stannis himself, but then Stannis starts making noises. He bangs his fists against the door, and Stannis tells him to "Shut the fuck up!" even though Renly doesn't know what exactly all of that means, yet.

Renly finds a lighter in his brother's room, once, a black one, with white words printed on it, sitting on top of the bedside table. He jams it into his front pocket because it makes a pretty flame when he lights it up, and smiles when Stannis opens the door for him. He rushes by because he needs to pee, and locks himself in the bathroom for half an hour, flicking the lighter on and watching the flame until he lets go because his small fingers get burnt.


	4. Chapter 4

**Renly Baratheon, age 18.**

Renly's favourite book is 'Lord of the Flies'. He'd been given a copy a couple of months back, from another patient, who had been released because he had gotten better. He just gave the book to him and smiled, like he knew something Renly didn't. Renly's only read the first couple of pages, but he decides it's his favourite book a couple of paragraphs in. He's eighteen years old and he has been institutionalised for most of his life.

Loras has, too. He's seventeen now, or at least he says he is. Renly thinks Loras has forgotten how old he is, so he just made his age up, because Loras looks a lot older than Robb, who is going to be nineteen in a couple of months.

Sometimes Loras rolls up his shirt sleeves, even though they're not supposed to do that, and Renly can see the blond boy's arms, thick with muscle and lined with fine hair along the surface. He gets shivers whenever he thinks of Loras' arms at night, before he goes to sleep, and he thinks it's because his own arms look pale and stick-like in comparison. The nurses don't strap him down to his bed anymore, because he's learnt to sleep without the straps.

Theon hasn't, though, and it takes the nurses twenty seven minutes to open his room up, and give him a sedative to help him sleep without screaming. Renly's learnt how that works, too. He's learnt a lot of things, in the ward. He's learnt how to sleep without needing straps, or sleeping pills. How to talk in whispers. He's learnt how to pace along his room without making a sound, so he won't get caught. He's learnt how to hide pills in his mouth without getting caught, too. How to measure time in heartbeats.

He wonders if the others heard him, the Stark boys, and Jaime and Tyrion. Jaime's probably not back yet, because he and Cersei stay out past midnight and visit an abandoned carousel not too far from the ward every fortnight, like clockwork. Jaime told him that one time, on the bench outside, in the garden.

Jaime and Cersei were brother and sister, but they were so much more than just siblings.

Renly thought they were odd, when he had first seen them, really seen them, not just glanced them over, looking for an empty table. They had been holding hands, (they hold hands everywhere they go, until they're forced to separate so that they can each go to their respective rooms on different sides of the ward,) and at first he thought they were brothers, but when Cersei spoke an her voice was so different than her brother's deep voice. So much sweeter, but with a sharp edge - like a blade. He thought that the twins themselves were sort of like a blade, opposite sides of the same sword, perhaps. And if they were the blade, then their short dwarf of a brother would have to be the hilt of that same blade.

Renly has asked Tyrion about what they were in for a couple of times, but each and every single time, Tyrion smiles and tells him to ask them himself.

Renly's a curious boy, and curious boys have to keep figuring out new things, otherwise they won't be curious boys anymore. And Renly doesn't know what he'd be if he wasn't a curious boy. Maybe a lonely boy. That could work, if Loras stopped being his friend.

(Loras wouldn't, though, because Loras is afraid of the dark. And thunderstorms. And hedgehogs.

He goes to Renly's room on days when the doors rattle and the wind screams. Renly lets him crawl under the covers and hug him hard enough for there to be bruises on his ribs the day afterwards.

He doesn't mind them, though, they're like a piece of Loras. A reminder that Loras was with him, that night, when the doors rattled. Like he left a piece of him inside Renly. A piece of his soul entwined with Renly's, and now they're one big mess of a soul, instead of two tiny and lonely ones.)

So, yes, Renly was curious, but he would rather make up stories about why the Lannister twins were in there, instead of asking them, only to be disappointed with the answer he got, like he had been with a couple of other boys he's asked. Renly doesn't really speak to girls, unless they're Dany. Dany's okay. Dany thinks that she's a fictional character in a book.

He thinks that Jaime's in the ward because he doesn't eat. He just shoves his food onto Cersei's plate and watches her eat it, usually with a piece of bread in his hands, so that the nurses think he's getting better. Cersei has panic attacks, but Renly thinks that that can't be the only reasons why they're in there, because there are a lot of people who don't eat and who have panic attacks, and not all of them are in a hospital.

He doesn't remember why he's in the ward himself, and his psychiatrist is particularly eager on him remembering what happened that night. Fifteen years ago. His house had burned down to the ground, and Renly couldn't remember why.

He thinks that maybe the doctors think that he did it, but Renly liked his house. It had his bedroom in it, with his playing cards and books. The garden was his favourite, with the white picket fence along the edge of it. He wonders where his mom and sister live now that their house burnt down. He never would've burnt his house down. Sometimes he wonders if he has an alternate personality, like Sansa, who screams, sometimes. Maybe the other boy burnt the house down and Renly's the one stuck in a hospital.

Maybe Renly _is_ the other boy, and he just can't remember. He wonders where Loras' room is and falls asleep thinking of what sunflowers smell like.


	5. Chapter 5

Theon doesn't speak properly. He stutters too often and says words that have no meaning, and Renly wants to be his friend.

Renly has never had a best friend, and he thinks that Theon could be that for him. Renly sits down next to him and Theon looks at him like he's the devil. He mumbles something and then points at Renly's elbow, so Renly stands up and sits on the other side of the table.

Theon goes back to colouring in a fish- no, a mermaid.

They colour in a knight with a sword, and a mermaid. Theon makes the mermaid's head blue, and Renly thinks of the one time he asked his teacher how fish can live in the cold sea in the winter, and his teacher told him that fish are cold-blooded, so he thinks that Theon is actually pretty smart.

Renly decides that he likes him.

So, they sit and colour together. Everyday. Except on Sundays.

\--

It happens during Dinner, and Renly's stuffing his face, too hungry to notice Robb sitting next to Theon and patting him on the back. Renly is sitting in front of Theon because Theon doesn't like it when people sit next to him. Theon shuffles away from Robb, and Robb starts talking about something that happened to him a couple of days ago. Theon grabs his dinner tray and shoves it so hard into Robb's skull, that his head starts bleeding mere seconds afterwards. Robb might need stitches. Renly looks at the pool of blood on the floor, surrounding the Stark boy's head, and decides that Robb definitely needs stitches.

Renly notices the nurses running towards Theon, so he tries to calm Theon down. He starts the mermaid story, which is Theon's favourite story, of all the ones Renly's told him so far, but he's shoved out of the way by a tall, muscular nurse, as he grabs Theon and stabs him with a shot. Sedatives, again. Renly holds Theon's hand until Theon's not pressing his nails into his palm anymore, and then he lets go as the nurses drag him back into his room.

Stark's in Medical Bay for four weeks.

He comes back with his hair all shaved off, and doesn't sit next to Theon ever again. The boy doesn't seem too angry, though, playing with his siblings and that weird kid who's friends with the Starks, and Renly thinks that that's good. Robb's a big guy, and he doesn't think that he could protect Theon, even if Loras helped him. Loras wouldn't, of course, because Loras is indifferent to Theon, but Renly still counts him in because Loras is his friend and he might be the only one who doesn't believe in mermaids or dragons.

Loras doesn't like Theon because he's weird. He goes away whenever Theon approaches Renly, muttering about how he has things to do, that do not include pirate ships, and even though Renly thinks that's rude of him, he doesn't really talk to him about it. Loras doesn't really seem to like anyone else in the ward, apart from Renly.

The nurses seem to have noticed that Renly and Theon are friends, now, because they keep calling him in whenever Theon starts breaking things, or refuses to take his medication. Which Theon does a _lot_ , actually. He's misunderstood, so Renly can't blame him.

The nurses don't even know that he moves the bed according to the day of the week, they just think that he's having an episode and sedate him. He tries to explain to them that Renly thinks that very very bad people will come for him if he sleeps on the right side of the room on a Monday, but the nurses ignore him, because there's bars on the windows and the only people who visit them are relatives. And sometimes journalists.

(His mother hasn't visited yet, and he doesn't remember what she looks like, anymore.)

Renly wonders if the nurses even do their jobs at all, mostly when he's finished telling Theon the story about the mermaid, and Theon's drooling all over his shirt. But then he notices that Jaime is called in when Cersei has panic attacks, too, so maybe they can't fake human interaction, and they can't force Theon to trust them, the way he seems to trust Renly, no matter how big the pay check is.

\--

They're in the Crafts room because Tyrion is playing with plastic and paper, again, and Renly wonders if that's the same piece of paper he was writing on with glitter, because if he looks hard enough he can see it shine just like the nurses' ID cards, and he has no idea how Tyrion managed to do that with glitter, and blunt plastic scissors. Tyrion must be a genius.

The Stark kids are constantly fighting with the Lannisters, mostly because there's no one else _to_ fight.

Dany thinks she's the Queen of some place that Renly's forgotten the name of, even though Dany's talked about it more than just a few times, and there's no use telling her that she's not. She's also convinced that the nurses are attempting to steal her dragons.

Theon is- well, he's Theon. No one actually messes with Theon because a) they feel sorry for him and b) they think he might turn violent. Theon looks like he couldn't hurt a fly, but Robb now hides the scar under a mess of black curly hair, even though everyone knows it's there, and everyone knows that Theon can, and will, hurt anyone he can get his hands on, if they try to hurt him.

The others have formed an alliance with either the Lannisters or the Starks, because that's how it works. Renly's agreed to play with the Starks a couple of times, so he thinks that he's a part of their group now. He has no idea whether Loras is, too.

\--

Sometimes Loras breaks into his room at night when he can't sleep.

Renly doesn't know how Loras knows when he's awake. Maybe he breathes different? Renly doesn't know. And on those nights when he's still awake, Loras comes. He thinks that maybe Loras comes on the nights when he's asleep, too, but he just doesn't wake the older boy up.

He doesn't know how Loras breaks into his room, either. He just finds him there, and since Loras can't go through walls, Renly assumes that he picked the lock.

Loras sits on his bed and talks to him until Renly is sleepy, telling him of how he'd escaped when he was younger, and all about the things he'd seen. He says that the grass is much greener on the other side of the fence, and that the sun is still just as bright, wherever he is. There's more people outside, too.

He mentions the Carnival a couple of times, and Renly asks him if he's been on the carousel. Loras tells him that, yes, he'd been on the carousel, and it was the happiest moment of his life.

Renly presses his palm against the chipped paint on the horse's mane, and sings to himself. He makes up the lyrics on the spot, because the only other songs he knows are slow and sad and not good for this occasion. They won't find him for another three days, after he's gone through most of the rides, that he thinks are still in service in his lucid state, but Renly enjoys the Carnival.

He slips into bed with Renly and lets Renly touch the sunflowers in his hair. Renly wonders if he's ever going to pull them out, or if they've just planted seeds inside his brain and are now sprouting from Loras' head.

Loras often musses up Renly's hair. He enjoys sitting behind Renly, fixing his hair into shapes, and then slicking it all to the side. He remembers when he was very young, and his mother would let him turn his hair into a mohawk in the bath. He's too old for bubble bath, now. Sometimes Loras kisses his shoulders. Sometimes he shoves a pillow on his head and tells him to pretend to be asleep because of the nurses.

He asks him why he's there, once. Well, not exactly.

"Do you know _why_ you're in here?" Renly thinks of fire, and a white picket fence, and a dog with a red collar. He thinks of Mrs. Tyrell. He thinks of a black lighter with white words printed on it. He thinks of a field, and a boy with sunflowers in his hair.

Renly doesn't, not really, so he says, "No."

\--

He sits alone at dinner time because Dany keeps sitting opposite Theon, and the boy seems to enjoy her and her dragons' company a lot more than he enjoys Renly's, so Renly sits on another table, even if there's an empty space in front of Theon.

Renly's been eating by himself for a few months, and he thinks that Loras is lost. He hasn't broken into his room in a couple of weeks, and Renly hasn't seen him in Crafts or Dinner or Lunch or even during Outdoor time.

Loras always comes with him during Outdoor time. Loras likes it outside.

The blond boy likes the flowers and the little animals, except for hedgehogs, and he sometimes picks flowers for Renly, and then runs around him throwing them up in the air and singing 'He loves me, he loves me not,' like an overgrown child. Renly likes it, though, so he holds his hand afterwards, and smells his hands at night, alone in his room, and they smell of flowers and grass and sweat. And Loras.

\--

Renly remembers what happened when he was six years old, and he hates himself for it. He hates that he didn't remember anything for so long. He hates that Loras- dear sweet _Loras_ , and Renly hates himself.

It comes to him in a dream.

He's in the middle of the Tyrells' living room, and he's reaching up for the liquor. He'd seen it on t.v. -- the flames that can be made with liquor. But they didn't have liquor at the Baratheon's. They just had cheap beer. But, Renly remembered that the Tyrells' had a giant case just filled with the stuff and all he needs is to reach up, a bit more-

"Renly?"

"Loras, come help me."

The younger boy shuffles next to him, and Renly holds his entwined hands out in front of him, and Loras jumps on, sitting on his shoulders. "What are we doing, Renly?"

"See that bottle there - no, the other one- yeah, that one. Pass it down to me." Loras hands down three more bottles, and then Renly lets him jump down off his shoulders. They wobble into the kitchen, with two bottles in Renly's hands and another two in Loras'. Loras sits down on his favourite chair, the one on the right, and watches Renly grab a tablecloth and douse it in whiskey.

They fight, then, in hushed whispers, because Renly's making the kitchen smell weird, and only the grown ups are supposed to do that, otherwise Loras gets shouted at. Loras doesn't think this is a cool game anymore. One of the bottles falls, and smashes against the kitchen floor, and the liquid goes under the oven and the fridge, and Renly pauses. He hopes he didn't wake up the Tyrells. Margaery would hate him forever if he woke her up, again. After the last time, she would definitely hate him.

Renly finishes up with the kitchen and ushers Loras outside, as he opens a bottle of Gin.

They sit outside on the porch, looking at the trail of Gin that Renly had just spilt all over, and Renly crouches down next to it, and then he pulls out a lighter. The Tyrells' house would be the prettiest to set fire to, because, well, it was there, and it would be such a beautiful sight to see something so gorgeous break, crack, wither and die, wouldn't it?

Renly thinks it would.

He lights the stairway and the trail of fire is too fast for him to watch, and he stands back, pulls Loras by his shirt, and after a couple of minutes, they see smoke.

Loras looks at Renly and the older boy notices that Loras has tears in his eyes. The younger boy runs into the house, calling for Blue Butters. Renly's chest heaves and he's about to run after Loras, and forget all about the pretty house being engulfed by flames, but then he starts looking at the fire again, and everything goes dark.

He wakes up in the middle of a field, a field of sunflowers. Loras isn't by his side, anymore, but Renly declares him king, anyway. He thinks he hears his mother, but it's not his mother who's calling out to him.

 

Renly wakes up in a pool of his own sweat, and screams. He screams until they stab him with a syringe, and when he wakes up again, he screams some more.

 

 

Loras had never lived past his sixth birthday.

 

_End._


End file.
